Jiffy Lube International has become the target of a class action lawsuit filed in California Superior Court for the County of Los Angeles. The suit, filed on May 8, accuses JLI of false and misleading advertising and unfair competitive practices in its recommended engine oil change intervals for passenger cars and light trucks, and asks fornearly $5 million in recompense. In the suit, the plaintiff, Daniel Horlick, asserts that by recommending oil change intervals of 3,000 miles or three months...

The production of PAOs in Russia could resume by 2014 once a major petrochemical company completes recently authorized modernization to its alpha olefin facility in Nizhnekamsk, Tatarstan. Nizhnekamskneftekhim recently sealed a deal with the German engineering company Linde Group to convert the plant to Alpha-Sablin linear alpha olefin technology. Previously, the plant produced alpha olefins through pyrolysis of naphtha. The modernization was greeted with cautious optimism at Tatneft-Nizhnekams...

A vapor release incident at Dover Chemicals plant in Dover, Ohio, on Monday led to a temporary evacuation of the facility. Caused by a reactor overheating, the incident was contained and didnt impact other plant lines. On Monday, May 21, Dover Chemical had an overheating incident in one of its phosphite reactors, Jack Teat, the companys executive vice president of sales, told Lube Report. The reactor chamber vented smoke and steam and was eventually contained, and there were no injuries (within...

Todays economic forecast may be cloudy, but the past two years were good for Germany’s grease industry, with sales reaching pre-recession levels. Germany represents the largest economy in the European Union and is a manufacturing dynamo, with exports of hard goods – chiefly industrial machinery, passenger cars, automotive components and chemicals – generating 46 percent of its GDP. One in five German workers is employed in the manufacturing sector, in its auto plants and mines...

Bahrains first base oil plant was a large API Group III joint venture that opened late last year. The second is a tiny Group I facility on schedule to open next month. KB Petrochemical Industries said this week that it is on the verge of opening a 50,000-metric-ton-per-year plant in the island nations South Alba Industrial Area. Some of the product will go to applications such as knitting oils, transformer oils and anti-static oil, Managing Director Jahangir Hossain Patwary told Lube Report. A...